


The Meeting of the Ways

by memorydoll



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Mentions of drugs, but between s11 and s12 probably works best, but this isn't about the plot so it's fine, could be set at pretty much any point in the series, just nod along and don't overthink it, me pretending to understand science words, mentions of virus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:08:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29389620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorydoll/pseuds/memorydoll
Summary: She wanted him safe. Her Doctor. Protected from the false god. Defended against every threat.Bad Wolf wasn’t just a name. It was a promise.Of victory. Of life.Not just once. Always.///The Doctor meets Rose again. This time, she doesn’t hold back. The Doctor says what needs saying.
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	The Meeting of the Ways

**Author's Note:**

> I'm supposed to be working on other things but this happened. I'm a simple person I begin thinking of Rose Tyler and I can't stop

No one cared to remove the bodies.

The skeletal, crumbling remains of the Senate never received proper burial or ceremony. Never got to escape the space that once held their last breath. In all their years of confinement to the Upper City, they had become part of the décor – as natural and as crucial to the design of the grand chamber as the long windows casting thin strips of light across the floor or the tiered seats allowing them to tower over the living.

But they no longer sat upright, as if bound by any shred of life or duty. Some turned to ash in the beam of a radiation gun. Others were discarded, their bones mingling with the dirt and the grime built up on the ground floor.

The Doctor bent down, fingers brushing against the nearest skull, gently turning it in her hands. Its neck was still stamped by the cause of death, a small square marked _Bliss_.

Above her, the rest of the Senate had been trampled to pieces under the heavy metal casings of their newest replacements. Plungers protruded from their bronze armor, guns aimed at her head. Their mechanical eyestalks all trained on her, trained for war.

“DOC-TOR!”

“Doctor!”

“Doc! Tor!”

The shrieks of a hundred Daleks boomed in the closed space, their hatred bordering on malicious glee.

“The Doctor will stand down!”

“You will obey us!”

Filthy, dry air swirled around her as they descended, six of them surrounding her in a tight circle.

She lowered the skeleton in her hands with a careful touch, a last show of respect, and stood up, her feet firmly planted on the ground and her eyes ablaze with a defiance reserved for the species she despised most.

“Oh, you think so, do you?” she called, a threat formed in the curl of her lips. “Just because you’ve got me cornered?”

“Your next step will see you exterminated!”

The shrill voice came from behind and she whirled to face it, leaning down and pressing dangerously close. “Is it?” she asked, conspiratorially low, as if sharing some scandalous secret. “Because I get the sense I’m still here for a reason.”

“You will die!” another insisted from above. “But not by our hands.”

She turned, slower, scanning the crowd for the speaker, a needle in a sea of bronze, then addressed them all as one. “What does that mean?” 

“You spent too long worrying for the dead, Doctor,” the same Dalek spoke, a metallic whirr accompanying his words like laughter. “You missed something.”

Her eyes darted across the room, and then, all at once, fixed on something in the back of it.

In the same dark, isolated corner where she had watched the Face of Boe die now stood a large machine, crudely put together from the scraps of his life support system and combined with Dalek technology. Tubes connected it all the way to the high ceiling, and out into the world.

“A planet scale Air Purifier,” the Doctor breathed in recognition. “But why…”

That couldn’t be right. The Daleks had no use for a clean atmosphere. She scoured the contraption, searching for the smallest hint to its purpose or flaw in its design, but the distance obscured all detail, and the Daleks shifted closer, pushing her away from view.

Her gaze snapped back up, the fury of a Time Lord simmering in her veins as the gears in her head turned.

“What’s in there?” she demanded. “What new strategy have you got this time?”

“A new drug.” One of the Daleks soared forward, cutting through the air with a hiss to take position between the two wings of the Senate. “A virus that will spread faster and kill fiercer than the last.”

_Of course._

The Daleks didn’t have to look far – the craving for _Bliss_ had reduced the world to ruin within minutes. But the virus was long dead, faced with extinction as soon as it claimed its last victim.

And yet, with the atmosphere at their mercy, any virus in their hands would be just as deadly. 

A tremor sent down her spine, catching at her voice. “What drug?”

“Hatred. Pure, unmodified hatred.”

Her eyes widened, the meaning behind the words like a jigsaw in her mind, each piece sliding into place with increasing alarm.

“Like you,” she let out, faint but clear in the quiet chamber. “You’re going to make them like you.”

“The survivors on this planet come from all corners of the universe,” the Dalek continued, his tone edging dangerously towards pride. “None of them are the same. Soon, their differences will turn to sickness. They’ll destroy each other before the virus reaches across the world.”

A sharp ticking sound filled the air, unstopping, and the Doctor’s eyes flew to the source.

The Air Purifier came to life. Every tiny bulb on its surface lit up, burning a bright orange, like someone flipped a switch when she wasn’t looking. The screen flickered on, bold blue numbers counting down.

One hundred rels to doomsday.

“Not even you would be immune.” The Dalek’s eyestalk beamed down at her, reflecting the light from the windows, making her feel small. “The Doctor – The Oncoming Storm – the one always ready to dirty her hands in favor of those she views as her own.”

Her nostrils flared, a shaky breath battling its way up her throat. Sweaty palms searched her pockets, frantic and lost, and came up empty.

The sonic had been lost to the Macra of the motorway, part of a desperate attempt to liberate what had become the Daleks’ biggest prison camp. The TARDIS was far off, parked in the depths of the Under City.

No weapons. No defenses. No plan.

“From this day forward, there will be no more New Earth!” the Dalek screeched, the volume of his voice reaching new heights. “This planet shall only be known as New Skaro!”

“All hail New Skaro!”

“All hail!”

“All hail!”

The cries of the Daleks vibrated through the floors as they echoed each other, rising in a frenzy of excitement only known to them in bloodshed.

Only the six holding her hostage hadn’t moved, their celebrations postponed in favor of holding her in the line of fire.

Her hearts pounded in her chest. The ticking persisted in the background. The noise was deafening, the mayhem overpowering. 

She risked another look at the countdown.

Sixty-seven rels left.

No time for panic. She still had one card up her sleeve. Her oldest weapon. Her words.

“Stop!” she burst, loud and ruthless enough to stun them into silence. “Do you really think it’s going to be that easy? Let that countdown reach zero and you’ll be the ones not leaving this planet alive.”

She was bluffing, hard, their fear of her the only weakness left to exploit.

“Explain!”

“The Doctor will explain!”

A grin broke across her face, a chuckle so smug it was almost self-indulgent.

“The Upper City was heavily adapted to quarantine. Entire systems built specifically to keep mutations of the drug from spreading. The Senate chamber is the most guarded place in the country. Can you really not guess where this is going?”

“Continue!”

Another glance at the monitor. Thirty-six rels to go.

“One whiff of your little experiment and the entire building gets incinerated. Blown to bits. Nothing left but rubble. Everything perfectly sanitized. Every last Dalek in pieces.”

“The Doctor lies!” the Dalek above her piped.

“No, I’m not,” she warned, restlessness hurrying her words. “I’ve been here before. I’ve set the system myself.”

“Impossible! We have ransacked every piece of technology from this room! The system of which you speak does not exist.”

The ticking grew louder.

Five rels.

“You wouldn’t know where to look!” she retaliated. “It’s a very clever system.”

Four.

“Enough!”

Three.

“Stop it now or we’ll all be ash.”

Two.

“We will not!”

One.

The numbers froze. The monitor glitched. The countdown was gone, replaced only by two words.

Bad Wolf.

The Doctor gasped, something old and familiar and warm swelling in her chest, and the machine dissolved. Slowly, surely, until it was nothing but atoms carried in the wind.

Disbelief snuffed out every ounce of composure she had left. Around her, Daleks rioted and raved and vanished from existence, but she only had one thing on her mind.

She turned around.

Ethereal and resplendent, pink and yellow, a figure stood at the other end of the cabinet, radiating power and potential and _time_. She raised her hand, and everything came to dust.

_Rose._

The circle of Daleks around the Doctor evaporated. She dashed forward, the massacre above her faded into nothing but background music.

With only a few steps left between them, she stopped. Hesitation tethered her to the spot, doubt tearing at her mind, insisting over and over again this shouldn’t be possible.

Tear tracks still glowed on Rose’s left cheek with the same gold shining through her eyes. She was still wearing the same pink sweatshirt from their last trip to Satellite Five. Her pupils shifted into focus, finally registering the new presence before her.

“Doctor,” she breathed, a sliver of pain barely concealed under the smile tugging at her lips. “My Doctor.”

The air rippled around them, like the vortex in flight, like a wound in time never healed.

“Rose,” the Doctor let out, so soft, fingers itching to touch. “Why- _how_ are you here?”

“I can see it all.” Her voice was hollow, possessed by the rhythm of the wolf. “The past and the future. Yours and mine. Every defeat and every heartbreak. My vision only limited by the same wall that separates worlds.”

The Doctor swallowed, memories millennia old flooding to the surface. The battle of Canary Wharf. The stolen planets. Bad Wolf Bay – not once, but twice.

“I divided myself. Scattered across time and space. All for you.”

“Why?” the Doctor pleaded. “It’s already killing you.”

“I want you safe,” she said, her words crushed into whispers. “Not just once. Always.”

The last of the Daleks dissipated into oblivion. The Senate chamber fell silent.

Something in the Doctor’s hearts fractured, fissures charting a familiar pattern – like a vase glued together just enough to admire from afar, but never use. It was an ache she hadn’t felt in centuries, reserved for moments of weakness when she was allowed to dwell on _her_.

Rose Tyler. Defender of the Earth. Defender of the Doctor.

She was overexerting herself, more than the Doctor had ever realized. The strain weighed heavily on her shoulders, hardening her eyes. Shallow breaths hitched in her throat.

The Doctor raised her arm, no longer cautious. She cupped her face in one hand, wiped away her tears, and Rose shimmered under the touch, nearly gone in the light for just the tenth of a second.

“Can’t you come through properly?” the Doctor asked, and it was selfish, but it was all she wanted.

A quiet chuckle escaped between Rose’s lips. “Whole timelines would collapse.”

“Does it matter?”

“No,” Rose answered, a small shake to her head, but it was fragile. She tensed under another surge of pain. “Doctor, I don’t have much time.”

The Doctor’s thumb froze against her cheek. Hazel eyes locked on gold, big and unaccepting. 

“I don’t want you to go.”

“It’s alright.” Rose’s hand found the Doctor’s and pressed closer, a momentary comfort, then pulled it down, the warmth of her touch extinguished in the cold air. “I’ve seen your family on Earth. You won’t be on your own.”

“No, it’s not alright.” With her arm still outstretched, her fingers wrapped around Rose’s in a loose hold. Her eyes stayed downcast, focused only on their connection. “There’s something I should’ve told you a long time ago.”

“I already know.”

“But it needs saying.”

The Doctor looked up, committing every detail of Rose to memory. She was breathtaking. Not because of the golden energy flowing off her skin in waves, but because of the square of her shoulders – the way she still stood, resilient and unafraid. The slight curve to her lips, the beginning of a smile that said she wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

At the tip of the Doctor’s tongue were words she felt every day, but never permitted herself to speak.

“Rose Tyler-“

“Yeah?”

Rose’s grip tightened around her fingers, somehow more corporeal than before. The Doctor took the smallest step closer, leaned down, then paused.

She wouldn’t be the one to whisper it in her ear. This time, she’d look her in the eyes.

“I…” An impossible softness fluttered through her like butterflies, carrying her words. “I love you.”

Full, pink lips stretched into a big smile, one that in all of time and space was unique only to Rose. “Quite right too.”

The delight etched into every single one of her features was contagious, and the Doctor beamed in return, just as bright.

In one hand, she reached for Rose’s face, tilting her head up ever so slightly, fingers nestled in the crook of her neck. In the other, Rose drew her close, the space between them turning gold with her every breath.

Their lips met. Time stopped. Her hand reached further, lost in Rose’s hair, in the euphoria of having her so near. Rose untangled their fingers, catching at the Doctor’s arm instead. She savored every contact against her skin, every stir of her hearts, every fleeting, gentle breath.

And then she slipped through her fingers with the same rush of sand through an hourglass, and the Doctor knew her first real kiss with Rose would also be her last.

When she opened her eyes, there was no sign of her left.

The golden glow died with her. The Senate chamber stood empty and dark, the Doctor’s vision unwilling to adjust. Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes, reluctant to fall. The vast floors felt too large to house her alone, the high ceilings not tall enough to contain her grief.

She should leave. She knew that.

More of the universe to see. More adventures to have.

The Doctor, in the TARDIS, as it should be.

But the world outside lay in a different type of ruin, and Rose’s presence still lingered here, in these walls and on her lips. The memory rooted her feet to the ground, and there was comfort in it.

On her own, in the heart of a dying planet, she stayed. Haunted by her big bad wolf, she convinced herself the heartache was bliss. 


End file.
